Process and apparatus for manufacturing soap



E. M. LOVELAND.

PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SOAP.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. Ill I92].

2 2 9 1 6 1 U I B d e t H e T.- a P 2 SHEETSSHEET I. I

E. M. LOVELAND. PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SOAP.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. I921.

Patented May16,1922.

2 SHEETSSHEET 2.

' 314 0014 to i A W u M $391 @{otoma UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SOAP.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 16, 1922.

Application filed February 11, 1921. Serial No. 444,091.

To all whom it may co'nce'rn Be it known that I, ERNEST M. LovELAND,

Y a citizen of the United States, residing at after mixing the soap to run it into frames or holders where it is cooled in large blocks and then stripped'and cut into slabs and cakes for subsequent drying, pressing and wrapping. The cooling in large blocks is slow and likely to permit an undesirable separation of the ingredients and the formation of air bubbles with consequent rejection of many of the resulting cakes. A large amount of scrapsoap also results from the slabbing and cutting and repeated rehandling so that the process is wasteful as well as prolonged and expensive in the apparatus and labor involved.

The object of this invention is to provide a process and apparatus for the formation of the soap into cakes which will avoid these objections and be short and simple of manipulation receiving the liquid soap from the mixer and quickly cooling it and forming it into cakes without separate handling, slabbing and cutting.

In the accompanying drawings illustrating? the.invention,

ig. 1 is a diagrammatic side elevation of apparatus showing one embodiment of the invention.

vertical elevational view of Fig. 7 on an enlar ed scale.

I n the process of this invention the hot liquid soap is flowed onto a moving carrier, the surfaces of which are shaped and dimen- Fig. 2 is a plan view of apparatus shown sioned to form the surfaces of the soap cake. Thesoap is conveyed by this carrier through cooling means which cool the soap and solldify it and the carrier then strips itself from the cooled hardened surfaces while cutting means form the soap into desired length so that the complete cake is produced directly from the hot mixture.

In the apparatus shown in Fig. 1 adapted to carry out the process of this invention, the hot soap in liquid or semi-liquid form is flowed from a mixer or crutcher 9 through the inclined spout 10 into a trough formed by a lower belt 11 and two side belts 12 and 13. A fourth belt 14 may be provided for the top surface so that the soap will be surrounded on all four sides by the convey ing belts 11, 12, 13 and 14. The lower belt 11 runs over the front pulley or wheel 21 and rear pulley or wheel 22, these wheels turning in counter-clockwise direction so that the movement of the upper surface of the belt is from right to left as in Fig. 1. During the upper portion of its travel the belt 11 is supported by the horizontal strip 23 extending between the two wheels 21, 22.

The side belts 12 and 13 are similarly driven by wheels 24 and 25 at the front and wheels 26 and 27 at the rear, and during the inner portion of their travel may be guided by vertical strips 28 and 29, which with the lower guide strip 23 form a trough-like structure. The upper belt 14 when used passes around the front wheel 30 and rear wheel 31 and under the guide strip 32 and closes over the trough formed by the other three belts as shown in section in Fig. 3.

The hot liquid soap is received by these I traveling belts the inner surfaces of which form molding means for the soap and in the arrangement shown in Fig. 1 the belts 11 and 14 form the side surfaces of the final cake and belts 12 and 13 form the large top and bottom faces. The soap held in the belts is carried through a coolingchamber 35 which surrounds the soap and the inner walls of which are the belt guides contacting all around with the belts (Fig. 3). The outer walls 36 of the chamber are spaced from the inner walls so as to leave a hollow surrounding space and the ends 37, 38 are closed so as to form a fluid tight receptacle for the circulation of a cooling fluid which may be admitted through pipe 39 and passed out through pipe 40. his cooling fluid 1s in contact with the inner Walls and these are in contact with the belts preferably of metal so as to abstract the heat as rapidly as posveyed by the belts which strip themselves from the hardened bar as they pass around their wheels at the rear end of the machine.

The continuous hardened bar is delivered through a guide 41 to cutting means which cuts the cakes to desired length and permits them to drop .onto the conveyor belt 42 beneath by which they are carried away. The cutting means may be of any convenient form; in the illustration of Fig. 1 a rotata ble wheel or spider 45 carries four cutter arms 46 in the form of yokes carrying the cutter wires 47 between their ends. The rotation of the wheel clockwise (Fig. 2) moves each cutter wire throu h the thinnest dimension of the soap from ace to face so that the cake is out from the bar along the end surfaces. The axis of the wheel 45 is offset to one side of the centerline of the soap so that the cutting wire will not pass at right angles to the center line but its path will have an inclination in the direction of progress of the soap to give substantially right angled end surfaces. If desired the slight arc shape of the cut may be straightened by constraining the wire to straight line movement during the cutting instead of an are around the axis of the wheel. For instance the cutting wire 47 may be carried by an auxiliary yoke 46 slidably mounted in the main yoke 46 and yieldably pressed out ward against stops by spring 48. As each wire approaches the cutting position a cam means 49 will engage projections 50 of the auxiliary yoke and press it slightly inward in a manner making the path of the wire 47 straight instead of curved as it passes through the soap.

The rear wheels or pulleys 22, 26, 27, 31 have their axes adjustably fixed in position and these wheels are the drive wheels and may have auxiliary idler pulleys pressing the belts into firm driving contact with them. The front wheels 21, 24, 25, 30 have their journal boxes 51 slidably mountedand spring pressed as at 52 to yieldingly tension the belts and maintain a substantially even tension on the belts. The driving means for the belts will be intergeared so as to move move the belts at the same rate ofspeed and the cutter wheel'is driven in timed relation to the travel of the belt so that each quarter revolution of the wheel, for instance, will correspond to the length of one cake of soap and four cakes would be cut for each complete revolution. Changing the ratio of rotation of the wheel 45 to the belt drive may be used to vary the size of the cake to make it for instance 9, 10, 11, 12 ounces as desired.

In the process and apparatus of this invention the soap is continuously and simultaneously molded and cooled with direct formation of the cakes and without intermediate handling, slabbing or cutting. The hot liquid soap is flowed into contact withthe conveyor surfaces which form the faces and sides of the final cake. Since soap is a very poor conductor of heat it is desirable to provide as much radiatin surface as possible and make the mass being cooled as thin as possible with no deep parts separated from the cooling means by thick layers of hardened soap. By the process and apparatus of this invention the soap being cooled may be in form of a thin ribbon as shown in Fig. 1. with a thickness corresponding to the smallest thickness of the cake. This gives a minimum distance from the cooling surfaces to the center of the cake and utilizes the faces and sides for direct radiation, while the thin belts travel in direct con tact with the soap on one side and the heat absorbing surfaces of the surrounding cooler on the other. The cooling is rapid and without tendency of the ingredients of the soap to separate andat the same time the formation of the structure of the soap goes on undisturbed throughout the cake and the surface texture is not subjected to the mutilating effects of stressing and friction as in the slabbing, cuttin and repeated handling of prior practice. The structure of the soap is therefore homogeneous with smooth molded surfaces unmarred by heavy friction or working and giving a much desired appearance of depth and transparency to the final cake.

In the modified apparatus shown in Figs.

5 and 6 the cooling means is arranged vertically instead of horizontally. The liquid soap is discharged from the kettle 60 into crutcher 61 and then pumped to the tank 62 which distributes it between a plurality of spouts 63 leading to cooling and forming '110 means 64 comprising sets of endless conveyors as in Fig. but moving downward instead of horizontally. The rotatable cutter arms 65 cut off the cakes which drop onto the endless conveyor 66 below. This vertical arrangement may be advantageous in some factories for instance where the crutcher can be conveniently placed on a floor above the cooling apparatus or where it is desired to compact the cooling soap by subjectin it to the pressure of the liquid column a ve.

If the soap is to be marked the necessary markings may be raised on the surfaces of the belts to correspondingly mold the soap or as illustrated in Figs. 7 and 8 die rolls such as 70, 71 surfaced with the desired design may be provided at the outlet end for impressing the marking on the cooled soap.

If the marking is to be on'the faces of the soap the die rolls will follow the side belts 12 and 13 of Fig 1 for instance and the lower and upper belts 11 and 14: will be extended in their travel beyond the contact of the die rolls with the soap so that the soap will be surrounded and supported on all sides while under the pressure of the die rolls. The die rolls and 71 will of course be intergeared to run in accurate register and the cakes of soap will be cut apart between the markings by proper timing of the cutter arms.

The process and apparatus of this invention provide in simple inexpensive manner for the continuous formation of the cakes directly from the hot mixture in the crutcher and without inte mediate handling or long periods of delay. The result is economy of time, labor and apparatus involved. Waste is prevented by the avoidance of scrap and the process is clean and convenient in ma-. nipulation in confining the soap to the conveyor trough durin the entire cake formation. The speed 0 the operation may be easily changed to suit different soap mixtures and the size of the cake may be varied by simply varying the distance of the feed between cuts. This is an important advantage in that it is often desirable to turn out different weights of cakes and to change the size of cake to compensate for variations in final weight. The hot soap flows directly into the molding means and is formed and solidified into a continuous strip successive portions of which are the final cakes of soap with molded faces and side surfaces, and all that remains is to cut these cakes apart at the ends. In the appended claims, therefore, reference to soap cakes is used to designate these solid molded cakes whether attached together or cut apart I claim 2+ 1. The process of forming soap into cakes comprising supplying soap in hot flowable condition, forming the same into a continu ous advancin line of soap, and while conveying it mo ding the cake surfaces so that the top and bottom faces of the ultimate cake are parallel to the line of movement, cooling the soap to solidify'it, and then progressively stripping the molding surfaces away from the soap without movement of the moldin surfaces along said cake faces so that said soap is delivered with its surfaces molded into a continuous series'of the corresponding surfaces of the'final cakes.

2. The process of manufacturing soap comprising flowing hot soap into conveying means adapted to mold on said soap a continuous succession of cake surfaces, simul-' taneously cooling said soap to solidify it in molded form, and moving said conveying means away from said soap so as to strip the molds away without movement along the molded surfaces.

3. The process of manufacturing soap comprising flowing hot liquid soap into endless conveying means adapted to mold the sides and at least one face of each final cake, cooling said soap to solidify it in said conveying means, and stripping the molding surfaces away from the soap without movement along the soap faces so that said soap is delivered with its surfaces molded into a continuous series of corresponding surfaces of the final cakes.

4. The process of manufacturing soap comprising flowing hot liquid soap into endless conveying means adapted to mold .the sides and at least one face of each final cake, molding the other face of each cake, cooling said soap to solidify it in said conveying means, and stripping the molding surfaces away from the soap without movement along the soap faces so that said soap is delivered with its surfaces molded into a continuous series of corresponding surfaces of the final cakes.

5. The process of manufacturing soap comprising flowing hot liquid soap into endless, flexible conveying means adapted to mold the sides and at least one face of each final cake, molding the other face of each cake, cooling said soap to solidify it in said conveying means, and stripping the molding surfaces'a'way from the soap without movement along the soap faces so that the soap is delivered as a continuous succession of cakes with molded faces.

6. In apparatus for manufacturing soap the combination with a flexible endless'conveyin means having molding surfaces for the si es and at least one face of the final .cake, of means for flowing the hot soap into said conveying means, means moving' said conveylng means horizontally with said soap, and cooling means ad acent said conveying means for cooling said soap during said horlzontal movement.

the sides and at least one face of the final.

cake, of means for flowing the hot soap into said conveying means, means moving said conveying means horizontally with said soap, means moving with the conveying meansfor molding the other face of the soap while it 1s cooling, and cooling means adjacent said conveying means for cooling said soap during said horizontal movement.

9. In apparatus for molding soap the combination with a container for soap in hot condition, of flexible endless conveying means adapted to receive the soap from said container and comprising rotary supporting means at one end causing a relative movement of the surfaces of the conveying means to position them as molds for the sides and at least one face of the final cake, and rotary supporting means at the other end causing a relative separation of the surfaces of the conveying means to strip the conveying means away from a corresponding molded surface of the soap.

10. In apparatus for molding soap the combination Witha container for soap in hot condition, of flexible endless conveyinrr means adapted to receive the soap from said container and to mold surfaces of the final cakes and move said soap so that the direction of travel of the soap is edgewise of the final cakes, and cooling means extending parallel to the to ERNES MERRILL LOVELAND.

and bottom faces of the soap. 

